Hi guys, I
came across this article and had to comment on it immediately. Posture will
return soon!

Daniel Son
had good knee, glute and trunk control..He did not practice Jin Ji Du Li every
day. Yes, he taught his neuromuscular (brain to muscle) system how to manage
unilateral (one sided) stance through a range of exercises, which of course
included one legged deadlifts, pistols, one leg hip thrusts and you guessed it!
Trunk control and breathing work!

I can
promise you that a 10 second test standing on 1 leg with your eyes closed does
not indicate that your body has degenerated to a 60 or 70 year olds condition.
It’s called disuse, or in many our families (our family in the gym I mean)
cases, misuse atrophy (wasting). One legged stance requires a culmination of
trunk, pelvic, knee and ankle control. Combine this with an exceptional ability
of proprioception (knowing where a body part is in space), and we have a pretty
solid foundation to perform most 1 legged activities.

The visual
system is essential in life. It interprets information from visible light to
build a representation of the environment which surrounds us, including danger
or in this case, the way in which our body is moving! If you remove this visual
stimulus in anybody in the world, including some of the best athletes, with the
best one legged control, I can guarantee the majority of them will shake,
wobble and fall quite quickly. It is the role of the central nervous system to
collect information from all the systems and then build a picture of the
environment. It then reacts to the combination of stimuli’s and causes movement
of a limb for example. The body adapts to using a certain muscle or group of
muscles in an action, even if it isn’t the most energy efficient or safe way to
perform the activity. The body always finds a way to perform a movement that we
want it to.

This stance
shown above is a type of ‘Wushu stance.” A Wushu is a stance which is
characterized by a “low and wide stance designed for mobility and protection.
It is used widely in chinese martial arts. Daniel Son did this very well. He
tore Johnny Lawrence to shreds in Karate Kid 1. Guess what allowed him to do
it? It wasn’t 1 minute of standing on one leg with his eyes closed each day. It
was Mr.Miyagi who thought up a well designed, progressive strength and
conditioning program which involved one legged work in all planes (front and
back, side to side, diagonal), quality core stability training, and most
importantly a solid understanding of proper breathing mechanics.

Why CrossFit is taking off

CrossFit is becoming popular for people who want variety, results and a quicker workout. Picture: Jeremy Piper

ARE you bored at the gym? Are you tired of the same routine? Are you still not getting the results you want?

Maybe it’s time you join the fastest growing strength and conditioning training trend known as CrossFit.

It’s a vigorous workout that combines weight training, aerobics and gymnastics all in one so that you become fit in every area of yourgame - not just one. The goal is to be functionally fit: push every aspect of your body to the max so that you’re healthy, strong and in shape. Not just so you can lift a tonne of weight or run a minute mile, but so you’re fit to do anything that life throws at you - now or later.

If this is starting to sound familiar, you might have seen the growing number of CrossFitters near you working their arse off in Reebok’s snazzy line of neon Nano CrossFit shoes. Not only does the workout stand out; so does the attire.

Visit Reebok if you want more info about the shoes but for now, read on to find out why CrossFit is better than what you’re doing at the gym right now.

IntensityIf you’re the type of person that moseys into a gym, does a round of bench presses, chats it up and then eases your way through a light workout, then CrossFit is going to be a serious wake-up call.

If the aforementioned workout is a light cup of coffee that slowly wakes you up, CrossFit is a shot of five-hour energy. It’s a fast-paced, intense workout that can take less than 15 minutes a day because that quarter of an hour is going to be condensed, non-stop movement. It may only be three or four routines, such as burpees, a jog and squats, but the idea is that you keep doing each one over and over through the set time.

It’s a concentrated shot of exercise and it burns the system … in a good way.

EffortThe key to CrossFit is the intensity but hidden in that fact is that you’re inherently pushing yourself to do the most you can through each exercise in the workout.

Everyone wants results but not everyone puts in the effort. In a regular gym, it’s easy to cheat reps here and there or sneak a longer break than necessary, but because of how the CrossFit workout is tailored, there’s no option other than to max yourself out.

Effort is the key to any workout routine, and because you go balls to the wall in CrossFit, you reach your goals sooner.

Short WODsIf you don’t have the time to spend an hour on the treadmill staring at the wall, the CrossFit Workouts of the Day (WODs) are what you need. One of the main benefits of CrossFit is that you can be finished in a matter of minutes - literally.

In a span of 15 or 20 minutes, you’ll be asked to complete as many rounds of a specific circuit as you can. By the end of it, because of the aforementioned intensity and effort, you’ll have burned more calories than you would have sleepwalking through a regular workout.

It’s faster and it’s more effective. Those short on time will appreciate that aspect of CrossFit.

CommunityOften times a gym is just a collection of random people focused on doing their own different exercises. At a CrossFit box, which is what they refer to as their gym, it’s community.

For starters, CrossFit is about competing against yourself and not others. In fact, since the exercises are done in group workouts, the others often encourage you and help you push your boundaries unlike anything you’ve previously seen in a gym. Even the person who finishes last gets a round of high-fives for pushing themselves as hard as they can.

Everyone has the same goal in mind: to get in the best shape possible. Because of that, everyone is on the same team and working to the same goals. The camaraderie in CrossFit is part of what makes this exercise experience so unique.

CoachingOne of the most important components of a CrossFit box are the certified instructors. You didn’t think you were doing these intense workouts on your own, did you?

CrossFit instructors are specialised to not only teach and motivate but to guide you through the workouts and help modify them around your game. Form and posture are quite important going in and they are going to make sure you’re on point.

If you’ve been thinking about getting a personal trainer, your CrossFit membership basically has one included.

Multi-dimensionalWhile the sport - or workouts - are sometimes hard to describe, it’s because they are so multi-dimensional. When you’re doing CrossFit, you’re not just going to the gym to bulk up or to climb steps. This isn’t a basic circuit of weightlifting; rather it’s a program that mixes so many different exercises to push all aspects of your body to the limits.

CrossFit includes Olympic weightlifting, calisthenics, gymnastics, sprints, plyometrics and a few other miscellaneous exercises. When you add it all up, you’ll never be disinterested at the gym and your body won’t plateau from repetition.

As they say, CrossFit’s specialty is not specialising. It’s constantly changing, which keeps your mind and body from getting bored.

Weakness Can’t HideSince there are so many different challenging facets to CrossFit, none of your weaknesses will be able to hide. If you’re a power lifter that solely focuses on the glory muscles, your endurance, cardio and conditioning will be exposed. If you’re a marathon runner, then you’re going to grow in very different realms.

The goal of CrossFit is not to make you necessarily super strong, super flexible or super fast, but pretty strong, pretty flexible, pretty fast and pretty good at a lot of other things too. It’s the ultimate jack-of-all-trades workout and no aspect gets left behind.

The thinking is that niche athletes are not functionally fit. Instead, they are just really good at one type of exercise and are overlooking other areas. No aspect gets overlooked in CrossFit.

All The Girls Are Doing ItIf you thought that CrossFit was a guy thing, think again. With the goal of the workout focused around overall physical preparedness opposed to just bulk strength, women are drawn to it for the calorie burning and butt toning.

You’d be surprised to know that the male-female ratios show women as the majority participants with splits ranging from 60-40 even up to 70-30. And the women who can make it through a CrossFit workout are going to have great bodies - you can be sure of that.

So if you’ve been hanging by the barbells in your regular gym wondering when that cute chick is going to appear and ask you for a spot, it’s not happening. She’s over at the box CrossFitting.

Ahhhhh Sitting.. Sitting,
sitting, sitting. Where do we begin? Look at the hunchback man in the picture
above. Rounded shoulders, very forward head carriage and a flexed mid back. Oh,
and his hips are flexed as well (his pelvis is starting to roll forward). Do we
all see that? Good.

Notice the bottom half of the
neck is in flexion (the pointy bits out the back of the spine are pointed more
to the ceiling) and right up the top of the neck, he is locally extended. The
consequences of this can range from mild to severe headaches, chronic muscular
imbalances or even numbness and tingling in the arms/hands.

Apart from the noticeable postural
deficiencies here, let’s look a little deeper. If your mid back is flexed over
as shown above, your lungs sitting in the chest within your rib cage do not
have the same ability to expand to their full capacity. If you don’t open your
lungs properly, your ability to extend your mid back will be reduced, which will
affect your scapula (big bone at the back of your shoulder), shoulder
mechanics, neck mechanics, and probably lead to some form of upper body injury.

If your diaphragm isn’t working
properly it can affect your entire core stability, predisposing you to lower
back injuries. If your core doesn’t work, your hip musculature may not fire
properly and so on and so on.

We can speak about lifting and
gymnastic posture another time, for today however, let’s chat about sitting.
It’s the most performed activity in the world, period. Prolonged poor posture,
whether it be in sitting, standing or lying places excessive strain on pain
provoking structures of all parts of the spine, hips and lower limbs – this is
not good.

There are many things in life
which cause some sort of consequence that we have no control over, this
however, we do. It’s really simple. Stand Up, move, get some mid back extension
and learn to breathe properly.

Vladimir Janda was a very smart
human being. He developed the theory of the upper and lower crossed syndromes
(Muscle imbalances causing tightness/weakness). We will chat about Vladimir and
some simple postural improvement strategies in our next post. In the mean
time…Stand up, extend your mid back, and get fat with air in your abdomen!

March 2016

World Class Fitness in 100 Words

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.